Underwriters for companies that offer surety products to customers often rely on institutional knowledge and experience to determine how much credit to extend. The ability of these underwriters to balance the minimization of risk with the desire for customer accounts has great impact on the company's profitability and ultimate success. Yet despite the importance of these underwriting decisions to such companies, previous practices have failed to take into account information that may increase the overall profitability of surety products and have also failed to provide tools that allow underwriters to easily and efficiently conduct the underwriting process.